


Rage Easier than Grief

by Paladog_Vyt



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Chemical Weapons, Choking, Death, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Podfic Welcome, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Violence, Vomiting, War, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24055756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paladog_Vyt/pseuds/Paladog_Vyt
Summary: As Tim deals with his grief over Bertie, he finds himself in a series of confrontations with Jonny, which force him to grapple with the emotional and psychological effects of immortality.Chapter 1 deals primarily with anger and war trauma, Chapter 2 focuses in on loss and grief, Chapter 3 has all of the more visceral body moments (see tags- Suicidal thoughts and onwards). Chapter 4 is a lighter and softer epilogue.
Relationships: Bertie/Gunpowder Tim (The Mechanisms), Briar Rose/Cinders (Once Upon A Time In Space), Jonny d'Ville & Gunpowder Tim
Comments: 17
Kudos: 104





	1. On Rage and Camaraderie

After blowing up the moon, there was a single image that was burned into Tim’s memory. Ironically, it was not the explosion that had literally burned into his eyes. It was Jonny’s severed head, winking at him. In the moment, it had been a spark of hope- just enough to light a fuse. But in the weeks and months since, it snagged at him like a hangnail.

Jonny, the Toy Soldier- they were actually immortal. The Toy Soldier had always obviously been nonhuman. Some kind of drone, Tim had figured, an automaton, something. For a long time, he had assumed there was more than one- a line of weapons, like the gun and tank models, especially when both sides seemed to have their own. But even when it became clear it really _was_ one continuous individual, it didn’t stretch the imagination to think it could survive more than flesh, or be repaired.

Jonny though… they had been comrades in arms. They had huddled, cramped under a lead sheet together, the four of them. They had wheezed and choked in nauseating fumes. _The harder you pumped, the heavier you breathed, the more the gas got into your lungs, the sicker and weaker you got, the harder you had to pump-_ They had eaten their fellow soldiers together for God’s sake. Tim had become desensitized to it, by the end of the war, or at least thought he had. But no matter how often he had gnawed at baked leather and boiled flesh, he could never really forget that it might be him next time, making the last sacrifice one could for one’s friends. A profane sacrament. They had sung themselves hoarse, spitting defiance at death because if you’re going down you may as well go down singing.

And all that time, for Jonny and the Soldier, it had been…what? Entertainment? A quaint little tourist trip? There had been no fear behind their gallows humor, no edge to their jokes. They had probably never trembled in secret in the night and certainly didn’t share his nightmares now. Tim still tensed at the smell of mustard, but Jonny could have walked through No Man’s Land whistling.

It infuriated him. It kept him awake, burning worse than the gas blisters. The rage kept crashing over him like a wave, bowling him over every time he thought he had found his feet. When the crew- even the nice ones- gave him funny looks for asking where the first aid kit was. When the Toy Soldier chirruped about all the “jolly good fun” it had had in another war, on another planet. When he ran to the sound of gunfire only to find a “spirited game of Mahjongg”. Every little reminder felt like a slap to the face. And as the empty space where the moon should have been could tell you, Gunpowder Tim’s rage tended to be… explosive.

“You absolute bastard”

“No, technically, but knowing my father never benefitted me much.” Tim had stormed in on Jonny in the kitchen, and the first mate hadn’t so much as looked up at him to answer.

“The whole goddamn time you were immortal.”

“Yes?” Jonny replied, head still deep in a cabinet. “Look, I know you’re still probably thinking in linear time, like a wanker, but immortality is convenient like that.”

“All that time in the war I thought…I mean it was…” How could he put into words that clawing fear, that even in his new life swelled and bubbled close to the surface? Especially when Jonny, apparently, had never had the slightest notion of it? “All we went through together. All the pain and terror and bullshit. But we weren’t ever really together, were we? No risk. No consequences. Absolute Hell for me and just a game for you.” Tim seethed.

“So what?” Jonny said, emerging from the cabinet with a can. “I don’t see why you’re all in a huff about it, it wasn’t exactly a secret. The Toy Soldier forgot to take respirators unless it was ordered to.”

“The Toy Soldier was very clearly made of clockwork. You though-”

“I’m pretty sure I was _very_ open about being immortal.”

“I thought that was bravado! Soldiers were always full of shit, talking up how they were going to kill five hundred Lennys before breakfast, or how they hoped to get some nice sunbathing in during the next microwave attack.”

“Well then, it sounds to me like it was the mortals that were lying.” Jonny answered drily, starting to push his way past Tim.

There was a click as Tim cocked his pistol, aimed right at Jonny’s head. “Are you even afraid right now?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “Do you feel anything at all?”

Jonny stared back at him, looking bored and impatient. “Yes, Tim, I’m _annoyed_. Because I need to go feed the octokittens, and if I walk in there splattered with cerebrospinal fluid they get the wrong idea. If you want to have a gunfight we can play later.”

“I’m not-” But Jonny was already walking away, and though Tim kept his gun aimed at Jonny’s back, he couldn’t bring himself to fire before the first mate was out of sight.


	2. On Love and Boredom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmares become fantasies become questions become unwelcome answers. A difference in perspective on rescuing Bertie.

Tim stared at his pocket watch- or rather, the photograph tucked into the hinged back cover. The watch itself was useless, he had broken it on his third day in the trenches and never bothered to replace it; the front was crowded, there was always someone nearby he could rely on for timekeeping- Jonny, or the Toy Soldier, or most often, Bertie. It was Bertie’s face he was gazing at now. Having no lovers waiting for them back home, no letter to keep hidden in their uniform, no tuft of hair to tuck into a locket- _no guarantee of getting home in the first place, the unspoken knowledge they could only count on each other_ \- they had exchanged photos, as a joke. Just like it was a “joke” when they made up excuses to hold hands- _you’d get lost in these tunnels without me, idiot_ \- or how it was normal for soldiers to make up nicknames for one another- _you still awake, Brighteyes?_ – or how easy it was to lose your way in the dark and “accidentally” crawl into someone else’s bedroll. And if there were quiet moments where neither of them was laughing, well… that wasn’t for anybody else to mind.

He had been thinking about Bertie a lot, lately. Near constantly, really. His nightmares of the war had been replaced with fantasies, all the more painful upon waking for their happy endings. He imagined Raphaella descending upon the battlefield like an angel to rescue them. He imagined the gunfire that took Bertie ricocheting harmlessly from Brian’s metal body. He imagined them squeezing into that lifepod together, chest to chest, limbs intertwined. What would Bertie’s mechanism have been? ( _Wasn’t his body already perfect?_ ) In his dreams, he saw and felt a thousand variations- metal fingers combing through his hair, a metal back pressed against his chest, a perfect mechanical throat giving Bertie the confidence to actually sing aloud…

In his waking hours, the hypotheticals tormented him. What if Brian had been in the trenches with them instead of Jonny? What would he do, depending on which way his switch was flipped? Would he end the war as quickly possible, with as few deaths as possible? Would he have fought at all? What would have happened if Tim had commanded the Toy Soldier to get them out? Would the _Aurora_ have appeared over the horizon, ready to whisk them away from the Moon toward the burning stars? Or was it on Jonny, as first mate, to give the order? And if Jonny had been on the ship instead, would he have bothered to come at his crew’s request?

Jonny could have taken them out of the war at any moment. Not just before Bertie died, but before any of the deaths, or the cannibalism, before the seeds of his nightmares could take root. Maybe Jonny could have stopped the whole war before it started- how much of a threat did the Kaiser really pose to him? No matter which way his thoughts turned, Jonny was at the heart of it. Jonny who had the ace up his sleeve the entire time, had all the power in the world to use it, and just…didn’t. _Why?_

One day, they were practicing again- specifically the songs that told of The Moon Kaiser’s War.

“It will help”, Nasyta had promised him, when he first refused to get involved. “Remind you of your past.”

“It will help” Brian had sworn, tuning another instrument. “Remind you who you are.”

“It will help” Ashes had assured him, suggesting stage effects. “Remind you that you survived.”

He had lost track of how much they had experimented with the lyrics and the melodies and the narration, but no combination seemed to be the release his bandmates had promised. _It will help_. As if it didn’t make his skin crawl to listen to the recruiter’s ad over and over. As if he could make it through a rehearsal without gripping his guitar like he was going to wring its neck. Better to snap the guitar’s neck than the Toy Soldier’s, as it sang _“No heart to break, so shed no tear”._ And now his head was pounding, and his vision was red. And with that stupid, smarmy, sneering voice Jonny was saying “Until Bertie did what young men at war are prone to do, and died-”

“Well, whose fucking fault is that, Jonny?” Tim demanded, smashing his guitar onto the floor.

“Tim-” Brian tried to interject.

“Stay out of it, Drumbot.” Tim said, pulling his gun without looking away from Jonny. “I want his answer. You could have rescued Bertie. Easily.”

“Why would I bother to do that?” Jonny asked. Not with rancor or spite, but as if the idea had genuinely never occurred to him.

“He was a person, a life, he was-” Kind, and funny, and a world unto himself. A world Tim had spent years exploring and now had to summarize in a sentence. “A _good_ person. Isn’t that enough?”

“The whole universe is lousy with people, and most of them aren’t at all interesting. Especially the good ones.”

“He was my best friend!”

“Exactly! And look what _you_ managed because of it!” Jonny made grand, sweeping gestures, posing dramatically. “One man in a frenzied rampage against an entire army, the trenches become rivers of blood, a climactic face-off in the throne room itself. You blew up the moon with its own canon! The lost martyr, the maddened hero- with divine aid from immortal allies, of course- the toppled tyrant. What a story!” Jonny crowed, his eyes sparkling. “Why the hell would I want to cut it short before it got really good? Hell, if Bertie hadn’t died, you would never have been interesting enough to Mechanize. I mean, your singing voice is nice and all, Tim, but that’s all it is, and Brian can play every instrument you can plus half a dozen more.”

“But _morally_ -”

“What does morality have to do with it? It’s simple. Before you snapped, you were Boring. And I’m not wasting any of my infinite time with anyone Boring.”

“I’m not a show for you to watch!” Tim yelled, swinging his gun around to aim at Jonny’s chest.

“Well, if you are, you seem to have reruns. Are you going to threaten to shoot me every decade? Because if so, you’re going to slide _rapidly_ down the scale back to Boring.”

“No threat this time” Tim growled, and squeezed the trigger. Jonny fell flat on the floor. Tim shot him two more times for good measure- _God, just to see the bastard twitch_ \- before turning on his heel and storming out of the room.

His dramatic exit was somewhat spoiled as he heard Jonny behind him, asking Nastya to kick over his harmonica, but Tim endeavored to ignore that. As he made his way through the ship, it was something else Jonny had said that bothered him. _Are you going to threaten to shoot me every decade?_ Tim could remember the last time he’d pulled a gun on Jonny, and it couldn’t have been more than a few weeks ago. Well, they had stopped on that one planet for a while. And there was the whole cricket debacle. Still though- no more than a few months. Jonny was just lying to mess with his head. But he didn’t need one more thing nagging at him all day, so he found Ivy.

“Hey Ivy, how long has it been since I came aboard the _Aurora_? In earth time, please.”

“You last returned to the ship on _Aurora_ -Internal-Atomic-Clock Date 3217.6- about 3 days ago, from shore leave on the planet Phegenides.”

“No, I mean… when did I first join the crew, after the war and all?”

“Crewmember Gunpowder Tim emerged from surgical recovery in the laboratory and began duties as Gunner on AIAC Date 1421.5. Approximately equivalent to 12 years, 3 months, and 16 days from current date. Do you need hours or smaller time units? Would you like to search for further data?”

“…No, that’s all. Thank you.”

Tim walked back to his room in a haze. Habitually, he simply blinked into night vision rather than flip the light switch. When had he gotten used to that? How much time had he lost? Well, no, he hadn’t _lost_ it, he could remember everything that filled it- card games and trips, meals and music. But when had time gotten away from him? He had been planning to commemorate the anniversary of the Moonfall, or Bertie’s birthday, or death day. Guilt knotted in his gut- how could forget something so important? He still remembered the day they signed up for the army- together, of course, because they had done everything together for as long as both could remember. _You’re not going anywhere without me._ Tim clutched the pocket watch against his chest and stared at the ceiling. How much would time and his own body pull him away somewhere Bertie couldn’t follow?


	3. On Morality and Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim begins to experiment with death, fear, and pain. The rescue and reuniting of Briar Rose and Cinders opens an old wound. Most of the content warnings apply to this chapter, proceed with caution.

_If Bertie hadn’t died, you would never have been interesting enough to Mechanize._

Jonny had said it so casually, but it was the Catch-22 that Tim picked at like a scab. Either Bertie died, and Tim was consigned to an eternity drifting ever further from him, or they both went together, forgotten statistics among all the other casualties of the trenches. If he had been the one to die, would Bertie have been the one on the ship now, finding planets to blow up? Tim couldn’t imagine it, though he spent many nights trying. Bertie had always been his silent anchor. The one that quietly held the lead sheet steady as Tim and Jonny sang on either side. The steady presence at Tim’s back that made him brave enough to charge forward. The one that made the dark moments in between the fireworks sweet. If Tim had died first, would Bertie simply have followed, like he followed everywhere else? Maybe their names would have ended up next to each other on a plaque or a memorial wall, for kids on school trips to pick their noses next to. Some nights, staring at the ceiling, he wondered if that would have been the better outcome.

Perhaps that was why he started experimenting- a fruitless yearning for the story to go differently. He felt like he wanted to prove something, though what and to whom he couldn’t have answered. It started with just not sleeping- which, frankly he had been doing anyway. But by making it a deliberate challenge, he could focus his thoughts on the sleeplessness itself, the sensations it engendered. Convince himself he was awake on purpose, not at the mercy of ruminant thoughts.

It was remarkably easy to get a chlorine gas cannister, and the _Aurora_ ’s emergency protocols could shut off any room in case of fire or worse. Tim sealed himself in his airtight room, sat cross-legged on his bed, and fired off the gas.

As the first whiff of pepper and pineapple hit his nose, every muscle in his body tensed. _Run. Run. Get to the nearest respirator_. _Get a gas mask. Run_. He forced himself to sit still and focus on the metallic taste, the stinging in the back of his throat. He took a deep breath that burned in the back of his chest, and started to sing as loud as he could.

“ _Gassed last night, and gassed the night before._

 _Gonna be gassed tonight if we’re never gassed no more…_ ”

He could feel it burning. Taking all the water in his lungs and throat and turning it to hydrochloric acid, dissolving him from the inside out.

“ _When you’re gassed, you’re …you’re… sick as you c- can be…”_

Body shaking, he started coughing violently, even though there was nowhere for the gas to go.

“ _‘Cause-- novichok and mus---tard gas are m- much-- too much for me…”_

He kept singing, even when interrupted by vomit on the word “choking”. Eventually his body collapsed, falling onto the floor, where the gas was only more concentrated, sinking around him like a blanket. He expected his vision to blur but it never did. Even as his body slipped beyond him, his sight of the green cloud remained crystal clear. He slid in and out of consciousness, waking, singing, burning, drifting off again. His body became No Man’s Land, with the gas gaining ground and his own squirming cells pushing it back in endlessly. He didn’t know lungs could itch until he felt them healing. He eventually stabilized and found himself awake, dizzy, and slowly realizing he wasn’t choking anymore. Where was the gas? Had he accidentally left a leak in the room somewhere? It slowly dawned on him that there simply wasn’t any left- he had run the chemical reaction to completion as a constantly renewing reagent.

In time he tried mustard gas, noticing the sweet scent like lilies underneath the smells of garlic and horseradish. It would sink into his clothes, leaving blisters and burns against his skin for hours after exposure. Phosphene, with its moldy-hay smell, would take a whole day biding its time before he started suffocating. Novichok was deceptively simple- with no smell, no taste, and in miniscule doses, it could shut down his muscles until his heart stopped or his lungs drowned. And yet, he could outlast all of them. He devoted some time to developing more versions of the microwave ray that had once been the bane of his existence- one for the ship’s arsenal, one for his own holsters. Sometimes he would set his own eyes aside, to watch his body cook. He asked Ashes to try setting him on fire, and they happily obliged. They did it during a concert once, and the cheers of the audience drowned out the crackling of the flames.

For all the variety in his experimentation, it all pointed to one of two conclusions: One, that Jonny had been right: without fear, even pain became just another sensation. With every gas attack or bullet or plasma bolt he survived, he became less and less like Bertie ( _Did any of his original cells survive? Had these hands ever been held?_ ) and more and more like Jonny. Alternatively, that Jonny was a selfish prick who could have done literally anything he wanted during the war and made all the choices that would hurt Tim most. The first theory made him more nauseous than the gas ever could. The second was the hymn of gunpowder, it kindled the same anger that had killed the Moon Kaiser, the rage that was easier than grief.

He shot Jonny on occasion, just to take the edge off. Unfortunately, Jonny didn’t seem to _mind_ getting shot at all, which spoiled the catharsis. What Jonny did mind, far more vehemently, was being called First Mate rather than Captain. So, Tim delighted in doing so at every possible opportunity. The first time the audience picked up the response in his stead, Tim laughed harder than he had in- months? Years? Who knew if Jonny felt the same way when he called Tim a “rancid prat” or stabbed him in the kidney. No way to tell the difference between hatred and banter, and Tim himself often played up the latter, but deep down in his core there was a burning coal of hatred, taking the only vengeance it could.

Sitting in the gunner’s chair, Tim unleashed a volley of gunfire on the seething army of Rose Reds below. Jonny and Nastya were dangling precariously from the ship, and for a moment Tim was tempted to ‘miss’… but he had no rancor against Nastya, and shooting Jonny was hardly worth it these days. The Rosies were shooting him up plenty and he was laughing it off. Instead, Tim fired off a few grander explosions, marveling at the light show.

“Careful not to hit me, my good chap!” The Toy Soldier said, popping up behind him and clapping him on the shoulder.  
“The guns are pointed outside, TS. Shouldn’t you be helping?”

“Yes, but I might be outside! I fought with the Rose Reds a while ago. Made colonel even. Lost an arm in a bit of a tight spot, but it all turned out all right, didn’t it old bean? That’s why Jonny ordered me to stay inside this time, in case I ended up helping them.”

“When did you fight with the Rose Reds?” They’d been watching the war for a while, but as far as Tim knew they hadn’t gotten involved until Nastya started fussing about something and Brian predictably caved. But Tim hadn’t exactly been keeping an eye on the Soldier, and he was quite familiar with its…peculiarities.

“Oh no, it will be in a few years, ages before I joined the _Mechanisms_!” The Soldier explained cheerfully. “Mr. Bittersnipe had will have found me, and that’s about when I will did lose my memory.”

“…Right”. Raphaella, Ivy and Nasyta has all tried to explain to him how the _Aurora_ navigated time from the perspective of their respective fields, and each had left Tim equally but differently confused. He let it go and just kept firing.

He only got a glimpse of Briar Rose as she was brought onboard, but he did hear she killed Jonny upon waking, which made her all right in Tim’s book. When she was recovered enough, Ivy interviewed her, recording as much data as she could about Rose’s experience of the war. Jonny kept hassling Brian about hurrying up to New Zantine, and groused all the while that they would miss “all the really _good_ violence”. Sure enough, Cole’s palace was quiet by the time they reached it. The whole crew came along to accompany Rose, and the joy Tim got from watching Jonny trip over himself in the dark was worth the lead-induced headache he got in retaliation.

But waking up before a massive throne, scent of gunpowder and blood in the air, sent a familiar echo reverberating through his soul, and wiped the smirk right off of his face. This time the kneeling figure was someone else, but he recognized this picture: the fallen lover, the tyrant struck down in vengeful rage, the war ended. Except Cinders could look up, and see her Rose again. Watching the two of them, kneeling together, clasping each other, filled Tim with a yearning so vast and unbearable that he had to look away. 

As they returned to the ship, each Mechanism went off to their own devices, leaving Tim and Jonny momentarily alone. Tim hadn’t intended to say anything, but the ache swelled in his chest like a cough he couldn’t hold in, and the question burst forth anyway.

“So Rose was worth saving and Bertie wasn’t?”

Jonny spun on his heel, and for a moment Tim was surprised- he actually looked angry.

“First of all” he growled, getting into Tim’s face “I didn’t even want to bother with Rose. Take that up with Nastya. Second of all, I’m getting really, _really_ tired of this Tim. It’s been a few centuries now. Hell, I bet you don’t even remember what Bertie looks like by now.”

“I do!” Tim shot back, one hand clutching the watch in his pocket.

“Right, your little souvenir. But would you remember him without it? Or once the picture fades?”

“Of course I would.” Tim insisted. “Just because _you_ don’t make actual connections to people doesn’t mean the rest of us-”

“No way to prove it now, is there? Fine then. What did the Moon Kaiser look like?”

A chill ran down Tim’s spine, and the image his mind conjured was blurry and faint.

“He… he had that mask-helmet thing. Grating along the bottom, looked like a skull.”

“No, that was what the propaganda posters looked like. He wasn’t wearing a helmet in the throne room; I bit his nose off, remember? So what did he look like?”

“…”

“Come on, Tim” Jonny goaded. “You went on a vengeful rampage against the man. You killed hundreds of soldiers because of him. You carved a bloody red path to his throne room, and faced off against him in the defining moment of your eternity. _Don’t you remember his face?_ ”

“Shut up!” Tim shouted, the ringing silence that followed only securing Jonny’s victory.

“I never wanted to Mechanize you, you know.”

“Yes, yes, I get it, you think I’m a boring, worthless-”

“No.” Jonny grabbed Tim’s chin, forcing him to look into his eyes. “ _I never wanted this for you_. I thought we should drop you back on earth, but I don’t control what happens in the Doc’s lab. So, in you went and out you came, our new gunner with your shiny new eyes that would see the end of everything you cared about. I swear to God you’re the densest, most unobservant motherfucker I’ve ever encountered. Did you learn _absolutely nothing_ from the whole drama we just watched? Now, I shot my conscience point-blank a long time ago, but you tell me who made the moral choice- jolly old King Cole in his quest for immortality, or Cinders for tearing out his rotten heart?”

Jonny grabbed Tim by the lapels and dragged him to view the receding planet they had left the princesses on. “You, Me, Cinders, Rose, everyone on this ship… we’re all designated survivors. The universe always seems to like leaving one or two behind- someone to carry the burden of the story. Cinders and Rose will get immortality too, but they got dealt a much better hand than us miserable bastards. That’s the end I would have wanted for you. They’re going to grow old together, and die eventually, and only their _best_ parts- their heroic moments, their passion, their love- will live on in song and story, as if preserved in amber. That’s what the songs are for, aren’t they? For helping remember the people that matter. You want to hate me, Tim? Go right ahead, it spices things up around here. But at least be angry at me for the right reasons. Bertie’s dead, and you should be goddamn grateful for it.”


	4. On Time and Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief, gentle epilogue- Tim reflects on past and future, and finds himself with a better understanding of his First Mate.

The _Aurora_ was landed on Earth, and Tim was perched on top of it, staring up at the night sky. The full moon shone before him, in its silver glory- and there was also a worn chunk of old moon rock in his coat. The photograph in his pocket watch had faded centuries ago, and now was merely a white circle of pockmarked paper, more resembling the moon than the young man who had died thousands of years ago and was not yet born. That was all right; He had taken a picture of it- faded and spotted as it was- the night they had reunited Rose and Cinders. It was still in his eye’s mind, and backed up in Ivy’s archive. It was safely tucked away among thousands of pictures: The City cloaked in smog, Brian, glowing red, stepping out of a sun, Dr. Pilchard’s gruesome corpse, the patchwork city of Pellinore’s beast, a smiling group shot of Cerberus, a candid, surreptitious picture of Martin staring across a campfire at a distracted Hereward. Tim had taken pictures of the little things too- Marius’ glitter-art octokittens and the Toy Soldier’s fanciest hat and Nastya, smiling softly, one hand against the _Aurora_ ’s wall. You never knew what would be gone in another millennia.

There was the clunk of boots on metal, and in a moment, Jonny sat down next to him.

“Does it bother you? Want to blow it up again?”

“No. I already have.”

“Mm. Raphaella tried to explain the time stream once- how things hadn’t happened and were happening and would happen, all at once. I shot her so we could have matching headaches.”

Tim chuckled. “Yeah, I didn’t get her explanation either.” He had come to comprehend time only by living through it. 

“Oh, I understand time just fine, but it’s got fuck-all to do with tachyons. It’s the stories. How many planets have we been on, telling tales- and those tales get told after us, will keep getting told even when our mechanisms wind down. Right now, to someone, somewhere, General Snow White is rallying her army. Orpheus is singing to a vault. Galahad is sitting down in the Siege seat. Endlessly, in a thousand worlds. The Moon war happened, what, three thousand years in the future ago? But somewhere in the vast universe, probably in a seedy bar, to the eyes and ears of a rapt audience, Gunpowder Tim is swinging around the great Lunar Cannon. And looking a damn sight better than you, I might add.”

“Thank you, Jonny.”

“Poor idiot, can’t even tell when you’re being insulted. I should push you off the edge of the ship as an act of mercy.”

“From this height? Hardly any fun. Want to go swap Marius’ arm with the Toy Soldier’s?”

“Absolutely.”


End file.
